Neil Gaiman 'not limited by Doctor Who budget'

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Neil Gaiman has dismissed suggestions that his upcoming Doctor Who episode was limited by budget restrictions.

The fantasy author told SFX that he did not find it "straitjacketing" to work within a television budget for 'The Doctor's Wife'.

"I don't think it's straitjacketing," he said. "It's part of what you do. The nature of the beast is that on the page you have infinite time and infinite money. In reality [it's different]."

However, he admitted that the reintroduction of old Who monster the Ood was initially motivated by a lack of money for new prosthetics.

"There are things that happen for budget reasons that actually make things better," he insisted. "I didn't plan to bring back a classic monster [but] we got to take a Russell [T. Davies] monster and bring it back, which made me incredibly happy, in a weird way.

"It was a nice link between the [David] Tennant era and the current era, and it was nice to bring it back and do something very different with it, turn it upside down."